


How to Dye Hair (with Pictures)

by slaapkat



Category: Green Lantern (Comics), Green Lantern - All Media Types
Genre: Enemies With Benefits, Hair Dyeing, Hal pretends he doesn't care about what people think, It's my persistant personal belief Hal should have been way more affected by Parallax, M/M, Parallax - Freeform, Sinestro pretends not to care about Hal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-24 17:55:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21103592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slaapkat/pseuds/slaapkat
Summary: “This isbullshit.”In a dingy little apartment in the middle of Coast City, Hal Jordan stands in his equally dingy little bathroom bent over a dingy little sink, surrounded by various boxes of hair dye, muttering to himself under his breath all the while.





	How to Dye Hair (with Pictures)

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is half rambling headcanons about how I feel like Parallax should have impacted Hal, and half rambling generally. That being said, I hope some people still enjoy it, at least!  
When it comes to my own personal interpretation of Parallax, I tend to go for a blend between the modern and retconned canons. As in, Hal being driven temporarily insane by the destruction of Coast City still fully happened, but the Parallax still acted more as a literal disease/parasite than a complete demon possession until further down the line. I also have a headcanon that Hal's hair is still the way it was, partly because I admittedly find that look preferable and partly because I feel like Hal being infected by Parallax for as long as he had wouldn't be without its consequences.  
Hence, why Hal is so eager to scrub any signs that he might still be Like That away.  
I hope you enjoy!

“This is _bullshit_.”

In a dingy little apartment in the middle of Coast City, Hal Jordan stands in his equally dingy little bathroom bent over a dingy little sink, surrounded by various boxes of hair dye, muttering to himself under his breath all the while. 

It’s a song and dance he knows all too well, at this point. A very frustrating, very annoying, and regrettably very _familiar _song and dance he’s had to put up with in the years since his sudden and abrupt return to the land of the living.

Years of unknowing possession by _Parallax _hadn’t been without its consequences. Hal’s chaotic and messy rebirth may have erased most of the scars he’d acquired over the course of his life, but Parallax’s sheer _essence _had more than enough time to entrench itself so solidly in Hal’s very being that it left a few scars of its own to make up for it.

Most of them honestly aren’t all that noticeable. _Mental _scars, more like. The nightmares that come and go, the paranoia of losing Coast City again that lingers constantly in the back of his mind-- but, for all intents and purposes, Hal is _fine_. That part of his life is over with, and he can move on without any real constant reminders of it all.

That is, all except for _one_. 

His hair, streaked white at his temples, glaring and obvious. Once a sign of his madness, now an unforgettable reminder of everything that had happened, the one visible sign that _anything _happened at all. 

Hal couldn’t stand it. Looking in the mirror, he could only see _Parallax_. All the assurances that it hadn’t been his fault, that it was _Parallax _who forced him to act the way he had, that it was _Parallax _who had taken advantage of him, _Parallax _who corrupted his mind and turned him into nothing more than a mostrous puppet.

In the _end_, maybe, once Parallax had been given the years to take root and fester within him like a gangrenous wound, the fever clouding his thoughts and muddling his mind. Early on? Hal had been _fully _aware of what he was doing. He killed his fellow Lanterns, his _friends_, tore down the Corps with his bare hands, blinded by the grief of losing his home and the rage that the Guardian’s hadn’t done anything to stop it. 

(Truth be told, Hal still harbored those feelings, deep in the back of his mind, embittered by the betrayal of people he had called _friends _who had turned on him without giving him a chance to just _explain_. True, they were as justified in their actions as Hal was, but the fact that they all had accepted his heel-turn so quickly without giving any thought as to _why _still stung more than Hal would have liked to admit.)

It wasn’t an _intentionally _kept secret, not at first, but it had certainly become one Hal was eager to maintain, meticulously touching up his roots at every opportunity. He had fought tooth and nail to win back everyone’s trust after such a public and devastating mental break, and he wasn’t about to lose it all over again because of a few gray hairs. 

As such, not _too _many people knew about it. Hal was pretty sure of that.

_Bruce _knew, of course, the bastard. It was impossible to keep _anything _secret from him. Hal suspected it was half the reason the Bat still gave him a wide berth whenever able, their naturally clashing personalities aside, apparently never quite able to fully accept _or _believe Hal was as recovered from Parallax’s thrall as he’d claimed. 

Carol, too, but only because she’d caught him in the act during one of his extended stays at her place. She’d been-- understanding, at least. 

The only others who knew were John and Guy, the latter of which had teased him playfully until ultimately both of them declared the whole thing to be _none of their business_ and left Hal alone about it. If Kyle knew, he never made any mention of it. 

Everyone else, evidently, more or less accepted Hal’s rebirth at face value. He died saving the sun, he came back to life, he was _Green Lantern_ again. His hair returning to apparent normalcy was the least of their concerns.

So, as much as Hal _did _hate it, he would continue to willingly keep up the act. Anything to help further scrub those years of his life off of his mind.

Hal swears again, and peers at himself critically in the mirror, running fingers through damp hair. He _hated _this because, despite all the countless times he’s put himself through it, it _never _got any easier. Literally-- Hal would check the instructions dozens of times over the course of the process, digging and re-digging discarded boxes out of the trash, paranoid over getting some step or another wrong and always, _always_, inevitably missing a spot around the back of his head. Maybe it was the stubborn refusal to actually _learn_, going back to pretending this is what he _really _looked like once the end result was achieved, maybe because he usually had so much going on in between touch-ups that he couldn’t really be bothered-- either way, this _sucked_. There was only so long even someone like_ Hal Jordan_ could stand to stare at himself in the mirror. 

It was times like these that Hal wished he were as vain as most people seemed to think. Maybe he might enjoy this chore a whole lot more.

Sure, he _had_ been briefly embarrassed to see himself going grey so damn _young_, but it had only taken exactly as long as Carol commenting that it made him look _rakishly handsome _for him to stop caring. Because, honestly, it really wasn’t _that_ bad of a look, was it? Nothing wrong in borrowing a page from George Clooney now and then. 

Now, however, Hal couldn’t help but find the look tainted. Not even the adamant attempts to try and tell himself it was his _father _who he saw in the mirror helped any, always gripped by that ever-present irrational fear that if he smiled it would only reveal rows and _rows _of razor-sharp teeth grinning evilly back. 

Really, he’d gladly go back to it if he could. The second he could look himself in the mirror and not see-- all _that_, he’d toss out all those boxes of dye in a heartbeat. 

But, for now, he was regrettably _stuck _with it all, a recent extended deployment out in space giving him no time to keep up with this private little ritual of his, providing the perfect opportunity for _all _those annoying grey hairs to return in full force. 

Hence… all this. Hal, shirtless, hair damp and brushed back, gloved hands bracing the sides of his little sink as he stares hard at his reflection. The dye was mixed and ready, it was just a matter of-- _doing _it. The desire to be _accepted _warring with the temptation to just not _care _anymore. It wasn’t like anyone _really _still trusted him, anyways, the only Leaguer to have gone off the deep end so devastatingly and publically, but to have whatever hard-fought trust he _did _manage to rebuild all go to waste over something so silly…

Before Hal could work himself up further, he dabbed some of the dye onto his fingers and began working it into his hair; the sooner he got it over with, the sooner he could go back to forgetting about it all. 

It was a slow, meticulous process, all the time taken to ensure he didn’t miss a single strand absorbing him completely and entirely, to the point he barely even noticed the muffled sounds of movement through the rest of his apartment. Muffled sounds that _should _have alarmed him, given that he _should _have been home alone. 

It’s for that reason, concentrating so intently on his own reflection, that he doesn’t notice the bathroom door slowly creaking open behind him, and a very tall, very menacing figure subsequently filling the doorway, going unnoticed until Hal’s eyes finally flick towards the reflection behind him, and lock with the gleaming yellow gaze narrowed to suspicious slits behind him. 

“Jesus,” Hal hisses, startling and swearing under his breath as he clamps his hands to the sides of his head in some misguided effort to-- hide what he was doing, if he had to guess. He frowns, annoyed over being interrupted. “_Sinestro_. What are you doing here?” 

Because-- of _course _it had to be him. Of course. The man that was honestly half responsible for all this in the first place. Strangely, Hal can’t find himself too upset over the intrusion.

After all, it wasn’t as though it were the first.

“I came to…” Sinestro starts, then trails off, letting his words hang with uncertainty. They never-- _acknowledged _this thing that they have together, at least not directly. Their little no strings attached, enemies-with-benefits, pseudo-relationship. However many words it took so that neither of them had to think too much or too hard about it, each pretending that nothing was really happening at all and that neither wanted anything more. Whatever it was, it stopped being a _hook-up _about two or three or ten hook-ups ago. They never talked too much _period _whenever they were together. It was either-- Sinestro showed up, unannounced, or Hal reached out with the ring, a few silent pulses of light that could be as easily explained away as a mistake if witnessed by anyone in the vicinity. 

Hal couldn’t help but think with no small amount of amusement that with all that the Guardian’s had intended the power rings be used for, a _booty call _was probably the last thing they’d ever consider.

Regardless, they didn’t talk. They met up, did the deed, and by morning they went back to hating each other’s guts. Something of an unhealthy cycle, maybe, but if nothing else it was _phenomenal _stress relief. 

Sinestro continued to stare down him with minor suspicion, hanging in the doorway, clearly debating between leaving to avoid having deal any subsequent awkward smalltalk and sticking around to see what, exactly, was taking Hal’s attention away from _him_. Hal soon enough gets tired of waiting and getting gawked at, and hunches back over his sink to pick up where he left up where he left off with a minor sneer; there was no point in hiding what he was doing by now, anyways.

“What are you _doing_?” Sinestro finally says, somewhat snide, clearly annoyed by Hal’s apparent choice to ignore him.

“Is it not obvious?” Hal retorts, rolling his eyes.

“Is it _supposed _to be?” 

Hal fights a sigh and leans heavily with his forearms against the sink. He feels Sinestro step further into the bathroom, and when he looks up again he sees the Korugarian peering down at him with increasingly skeptical curiosity. 

“What are you doing to your _hair_?” Sinestro asks, leaning down for a closer look and lip curling slightly in distaste as Hal’s current state, a portion of his hair plastered back with the dye, wearing nothing but old sweatpants and latex gloves. Not for the first time, Hal begins to question _why _he thought this thing with Sinestro was ever a good idea. Again, they didn’t-- _talk_. Sinestro’s apparent abrupt fascination with the process of dyeing hair threatened to veer dangerously into personal territory. 

“Getting rid of the grey,” Hal says somewhat tersely, unwilling to explain much further than that, and tries to concentrate on the task at hand. It’s then Sinestro finally seems to notice the streaks of grey wrapping around his temples.

“_What_ grey--” Sinestro begins to scoff, only to cut himself off, making a face that Hal can’t quite guess the meaning of. If anything, he almost looks annoyed, eyes narrowing and crossing his arms. “Since when do you look like that?” A pause. “And why ‘get rid’ of it?”

The tone catches Hal off-guard. Suspicious in the way Sinestro tends to be by way of default, but with a genuine enough sort of curiosity underneath that it gives Hal pause. Concern? Impossible. Sinestro couldn’t have cared about him that _much_. 

Nonetheless, he senses he’s not about to make much progress in the endeavor if Sinestro keeps pestering him, so he grits his teeth and steels himself for the worst.

“Years, actually,” Hal starts, terse as he dutifully keeps his eyes on his own reflection, still going through the motions of working the dye into his hair. “Since a little before I, uh. Became Parallax. I know now the white-streaked look is kind of a package deal, but I guess I was stuck with it for so long it just became permanent." 

Hal expects Sinestro to scoff again, to scorn his weakness and inferiority as he is often wont to do even at the best of times-- he was the one and only being in the universe to successfully tame and control the parasitic fear entity almost completely, after all --but when he tentatively glances back Sinestro is silent, and his expression unreadable.

“Years,” he echoes, arching a brow in minor disbelief. “Really?”

“You don’t-- you don’t remember when my hair used to look like this?” Hal says. “You saw me on Oa, that one time, didn’t you?”

“Can’t say that I do,” Sinestro says dryly, shrugging. “Considering the circumstances.”

Hal cringes, then, remembering. Sinestro had already long since been trapped inside the Central Power Battery by the time Hal’s hair had started to change, only to be released just in time for Hal to _kill _him in his grief-induced fury. Hal can’t help but grimace at the memory, hazy as it was. Of course Sinestro rightfully wouldn’t know about it all, given that he was-- dead, presumably, for most if not all of his time as Parallax. 

“I’m… sorry. About all that,” Hal mutters. Better late than never, at any rate. The old guilt lingers all the same.

“Don’t bother,” comes the lackadaisical response. “If anything, a part of me admires you for finally crossing the line. Still, that doesn’t answer my question. Why get rid of it?”

Because he hates it. Because he’s afraid. Because he just wants to be normal again. Because he wants to be trusted again.

“Because,” Hal says, quiet. His hands come down to grip the sides of the sink, head bowed. “I don’t-- want to be seen like _that_, again. _You _may have worked Parallax to an advantage, but it destroyed my _life_. I had to _kill _myself to get out. I don’t want to be reminded of that, and I don’t want to remind anyone else. I just want my life back. So. That’s why. Happy?”

Again, he expects Sinestro to react with derision or disdain, uncomfortably aware of the fact that he was very much airing his fears to a man who wielded a weapon _powered _by it. This time, Hal chooses not to glance back to see whether or not he’s right. The silence is heavy, neither speaking or moving until Sinestro’s voice suddenly rings out.

“How much longer will this take?”

Hal blinks, looking up at Sinestro. “...What?”

“I said,” Sinestro repeats slowly, impatient and a touch condescending. “How much longer will this take?”

Hal gapes and struggles to decide how to answer. Sinestro still-- wanted what he came for, apparently. Whatever it may be. The thought makes a small flush reach Hal’s face, as much in anticipation as it was embarrassment and annoyance at being told to, essentially, _hurry up_. Hal elects to frown.

“Some time,” Hal grouses, defensive as he turns back to the mirror and gets back to work. “I was never any good at it, and I want to make sure I get at everything. So, a while.”

He hears Sinestro huff behind him before stepping even closer. Hal is forced to stop brushing more dye into his hair so he can stand and step back; his bathroom was small enough as it was _without _a six-foot-seven, occasionally despotic, purple-skinned alien taking up all the space. Hal’s frown deepens. “Can I help you?”

“If I provided assistance, would it go faster?”

Hal, regrettably, is struck silent again. The question was poised casually, flatly stated and expectant of an answer. Sinestro _never _willingly offered help, not unless in advantaged him in some capacity.

(Then again, wanting to nail Hal against the nearest surface probably _did _count as some sort of plus in Sinestro’s mind, so maybe the offer wasn’t _quite _as selfless as it seemed. It… also didn’t hurt that Hal more or less wanted the same thing.)

“I… maybe? Four hands are better than two, I guess?” Hal says, somewhat stilted and awkward under the sudden intensity of Sinestro’s gaze. “Sometimes I trouble getting the back of my head fully covered. So. If you… want to help with that. There’s gloves over there.”

Hal gestures towards the discarded box of rubber gloves in the corner of the bathroom, but Sinestro just huffs, rolling his eyes, and raises his hands; his ring shimmers, and a yellow construct of light forms like a pair of gloves over them.

“Bend over,” comes the order, and Hal has to fight back a snort of laughter.

“Now, when you said _assistance--_”

“The _sink_, Jordan, don’t be so juvenile,” Sinestro says impatiently, and nudges at Hal’s back until he complies. “I said I would _help_, didn’t I? So I will help. You’re too focused on how you look in the mirror, hence why this always _seems _like such a chore, and why _I _will just do it, instead. The faster we conclude this, the faster we can move on to the business I came for.”

_Business_. Ha. Hal actually can’t help but chuckle at that. It’s as far as his thoughts go before he feels Sinestro’s fingers run through his hair and for a split second worries his knees are about to give out from under him.

Sinestro, as a rule, isn’t really-- _gentle_, and he certainly isn’t now, somewhat stiff and uncertain as he takes the dye and works it into Hal’s hair as he had observed, but Sinestro does it with _just _enough overly carefulness that it’s almost a sufficient enough facsimile all on its own. 

Not to mention, it just feels _really _fucking good to have someone’s hands in your hair generally. 

Hal feels his eyes slide shut, leaning against the sink, mostly content to lose himself in the feeling and to have Sinestro take the weight off his shoulders for once. Things were still-- stiff, between them, obviously awkward and a touch uncomfortable, but both were steadfastly ignoring it.

In his effort to avoid directly confronting the feelings Hal honestly didn’t particularly want to confront himself, Sinestro had more or less inadvertently just made it all the more harder for the both of them. 

Still, Hal can’t deny that it feels _nice_. Almost like Sinestro cares. A dangerous thought.

Almost _too _nice. Sinestro is dutiful in his work, making good on his promise to go quicker than Hal did. As he finishes up, he cards his fingers one last time through Hal’s hair.

Hal moans, low and breathy.

They both freeze, and Hal suddenly and absurdly wishes the Earth with swallow him up. It wasn’t _like _that, it wasn’t _supposed _to be like that, Sinestro was just supposed to help with his hair and then they would fuck and then he’d _leave _and they’d go back to not caring about each other.Touches weren’t _soft _and they weren’t _nice _to each other. His face goes red in an instant, and neither man moves.

Finally, after what feels like eons, Sinestro removes his hands and steps back, and Hal straightens to face him.

The glove constructs fade away. Hal watches him with uncertainty. Sinestro watches back, his own expression once again unreadable.

“Thank you,” is all Hal ends up saying, forcing his way past the awkward moment. “Uh. For the help.”

Sinestro remains quiet, head tilting slightly as he seems to consider something; Hal has the distinct impression he’s being examined.

Sinestro reaches out, then, daring to caress the side of Hal’s face with uncommon gentleness.

“If it helps, I’m inclined to like it.”

Hal frowns, and makes to pull away, the mood threatening to sour. Of course he would. “Sinestro…”

“Quiet. It makes you look-- _dignified_.” If it’s meant to be a compliment, it’s one awkwardly given. Obviously something Sinestro was not used to doing. “Respectable, even. Unrelated to your time and actions as Parallax. Given that I wasn’t… _around_, during that time, I feel as though it’s worth _some _merit.”

Hal gnaws at the inside of his cheek, indecisive, but makes no effort to protest. It was almost sweet, really. Coming from Sinestro, anyways. It’s as earnest as he’ll ever be either way. Hal feels heat rise to his face regardless. He’s not sure he’ll ever be comfortable confronting that part of himself, but it’s-- nice, for once, to know not everyone holds the same associations he does.

A small, simple reassurance that maybe he _can _get back from it after all. 

“I’ll… take that into consideration,” Hal says, and smiles. It’s tentative, but warm. He leans into Sinestro’s touch, stepping closer and resting his hands on his hips. “Y’know, it’ll be another hour or so before I can wash this out. If you still want to stick around, I’m sure there are still ways we can occupy ourselves in the meantime.”

Sinestro hums his approval, lips twitching with the ghost of self-satisfied smile of his own. “Oh, I’m sure there are.”

They both know they should talk about this more-- about Parallax, about their relationship, about _everything _\--and they both know it’ll never be quite the right time to, no matter what. And that’s-- fine. Sinestro leans in to kiss him, and Hal returns it without hesitation. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm also slaapkat on tumblr!
> 
> the title comes from a wikihow article i had to keep looking up to figure out how home dyeing works lmao


End file.
